


Change Your Mind

by accio_broom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Auror Ron Weasley, Consensual Sex, Consent, Drinking, F/M, Friends With Benefits, HPRomione Discord's ROMioneCOM Challenge, Healer Hermione Granger, No Strings Attached, Recreational Drug Use, Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29878923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accio_broom/pseuds/accio_broom
Summary: Lifelong friends Hermione and Ron take their relationship to the next level by having sex. Afraid of ruining their friendship, the new lovers make a pact to keep things purely physical, with no fighting, no jealousy and no expectations. They pledge to do whatever they want, wherever they want, as long as they do not fall in love. The question then becomes: who will fall first?UPDATES SATURDAYS
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 20
Kudos: 20
Collections: RomioneCom





	Change Your Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. I wasn't planning on starting to post this yet, but I already have four chapters of it written so I thought why keep it from you guys any longer. This will update every Saturday. It's my Romionecom interpretation of No Strings Attached. A massive warning comes with this. Although the majority of it is light-hearted, it will be earning its Mature label (and may teeter very close to the edge of explicit). Expect drinking, sex, light drug use (weed mostly) and lots and lots of swearing. If that's not your thing, I won't be insulted if you chose not to read this.
> 
> As always, if you enjoy this, please let me know. If you don't, also let me know but don't forget to be nice and be constructive. The songs at the start of each chapter are taken from the soundtrack, and I've tried to match them closely to the moments. Enjoy xxx

_ Come inside take off your coat I’ll make you feel at home _ _   
_ _ Now let’s pour a glass of wine cause now we’re all alone _ _   
_ _ I’ve been waiting for you just let me hold you close to me _ _   
_ __ Cause I’ve been dying for you girl to make love to me

I Wanna Sex You Up, Color Me Badd (1991)

**Ron**

_ 2005 _

Camp Hogwarts was a summer school for magically gifted students.

For two weeks every summer from the age of twelve, I would board the Hogwarts Express from King’s Cross and head back to Scotland with my sister, Ginny, and my best friend, Harry. We had been selected to attend for our Quidditch skills and our ability in Defence Against the Dark Arts — my favourite subject.

Travelling to camp was a pain in the arse. The journey to Hogsmeade was arduous, and I already attended Hogwarts for the standard school term. There was a month’s gap, so it meant I had to go all the way home to Devon, only to return thirty days later. 

At least they didn’t hold the camp in the castle. Instead, we were divided into houses and crammed into log cabins on the other side of the Great Lake. There were two per house — one for girls and one for boys. The Scottish weather was fucking brutal, even during the summer, and we were forced to huddle against the elements. At least we could use magic to keep ourselves warm.

The best part about the camp, aside from having the chance to practice our magic, was that they taught us how to do muggle things. It was Headmaster Dumbledore’s attempt at trying to make us more rounded. We learned archery and how to build rafts out of barrels. It’s mental what muggles do for a bit of fun. None of these skills would ever come in handy; we have wands, after all.

I guess at least it got my sister and me out of the house and away from our over amorous parents. As soon as Ginny left for school, they started taking full advantage that all seven of their children were out of the house. Seven of us! You’d think that would put them off ever wanting to shag again, but nope! Apparently, nothing was going to stop them.

The thought just makes me want to puke. Nobody wants to walk in on their parents having sex. It’s mentally scarring, especially as a teenage virgin.

At the end of the camp, just before we got back on the Hogwarts express  _ yet again _ to make the ridiculously long journey back to King’s Cross (only to have to do the same thing a month later), the faculty threw us a party. They hired a DJ, the house-elves put on their best buffet, and we danced the night away.

My attitude towards these parties changed the older I got. When I was twelve, I mostly just stood on the sidelines with Harry and took the piss out of everyone dancing. Especially if one of our friends had been brave enough to give it a go. We thought this made us cool, but we probably just looked sad and pathetic.

As puberty took its grip on our hormones, and we finally realised how interesting girls were, we started to crave a date and hopefully a snog at the end of the night.

Which is how I found myself sitting on a bench near the lake during the late hours of our last ever party. With Hermione Granger of all people. She was a bushy-haired, know-it-all witch who had been coming to the camp for as long as Harry, Ginny, and I, although she didn’t attend Hogwarts usually. I think she went somewhere in France, which was a little bit snobby in my opinion, especially as she was definitely from England. She was bunkmates with my sister, though, so I vaguely knew who she was, but I hadn’t made a lot of effort to befriend her over the years.

Anyway, she was a girl and pretty enough, and I knew I’d never see her again, so I thought, why the hell not?! We’d danced for a little bit (never touching), and then I invited her out to see the stars. I watched that in a muggle romantic movie once and remembered adding it to my mental list of ways to pull a girl.

Only this was as far from romantic as it could possibly be.

All around us sat snogging couples, and I can vaguely remember wondering how the hell did so many people get together all of a sudden? Unless someone had slipped some  _ Amortentia  _ in the punch, which I highly doubted because I drank a lot of it. It was also cloudy out, so we couldn’t even see the stars, despite the fact we were miles away from civilisation and any light pollution.

It felt like there was about 500 feet on the bench between Hermione and me. She was wearing the standard camp t-shirt, which was red for Gryffindor just like mine, and shorts, and I could see how cold she was by the goose-pimples on her leg. So as any smooth teenage boy would do, I pretended to yawn and extended my arm around her shoulder. Hermione took the bait and shuffled closer to me.

She smelt of perfume. She didn’t wear a lot of it like the other girls, just a faint amount that I could just catch a whiff of if the breeze was blowing in the right direction. She also smelt of strawberries and grass, and it sent the blood circulating around my body south pretty quickly.

“Isn’t it sad that when we leave tomorrow, we’ll never come back here?” Hermione broke the silence. We’d both be coming of age this school year, although I wasn’t 17 until March. Of course, I’d be back up to Hogwarts in just over a month, but I knew what she meant.

“Yeah. It’s a shame; I’ve just mastered macrame too.” Honestly, I wasn’t usually that bad with talking to people. With six siblings, you quickly learn how to make yourself heard.

“Well, that will be useful if you ever need to trap someone or hang a pot…”

I laughed, and the tension melted slightly. “You’re funny.”

“No, I’m not,” Hermione replied quickly. “I’m weird. I’ve never fit in here. Not like you. You’re funny, and everyone likes you…”

“Yet you’re the only girl I’ve danced with since I’ve been coming here…”

She let out a harrumph, and I turned to look at her. She had a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Not like my bleeding great red ones that seemed to cover my whole bloody face and the rest of me, but dainty ones, barely visible on her olive skin. The kind of freckles that only came out when you caught just the right amount of sun.

“Well, still. You have friends. I’m not very good with people or emotions.” Hermione was frowning into the distance now. 

The conversation wasn’t going the way I had planned, and I had to admit I was starting to panic. I fumbled for a response that would appease her and set me up to move in for a snog. I was painfully aware that if I didn’t make a move quickly, my moment would be lost forever.

With my anxiety about going back to my cabin that night without a snog rising and my complete inexperience in anything sexual, I muttered the words I would regret for the rest of my life.

“Can I finger you?”

**Hermione**

_ 2015 _

Most girls would be horrified at the thought of their first kiss being prefixed with the question  _ ‘can I finger you?’ _ But those immortal words set the tone for the whole of my relationship with Ron.

Of course, I didn’t let him do it. Even a girl like me, whose clinical and studious approach to everything left me trailing behind all other girls my age when it came to sex and boys, wasn’t that desperate. I’d at least appreciate a snog first, or have them tell me I looked pretty.

So, that’s where I left my friendship with Ron Weasley: Sat forlornly on a bench next to the Great Lake — another story to tell my roommates at Beauxbatons, who squealed incredulously and then questioned why I didn’t just let him do it.

My answer? Because I have standards.

Also, unlike the majority of witches and wizards at my school, I don’t have an ounce of Veela blood in me, so I couldn’t even be sure if Ron was actually interested in me, or if he was just looking for a story to tell Harry and the rest of his dormmates once he got back to Hogwarts.

I didn’t expect to see him again, so I could have just let him get on with it. Thinking back, I’m very glad I didn’t.

After graduating from Beauxbatons with seven N.E.W.Ts, I moved permanently back to the UK and started to integrate myself into the British Magical Community. I took up an apprenticeship position at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Once I qualified as a Healer, I decided to specialise — eventually choosing curses and artefact accidents for my further studies.

Because it was so expensive to live in London, I ended up taking a room in a house share with Ginny and a few of her friends from Hogwarts, some of whom were healers too. 

Ginny was flying with the Holyhead Harpies while I worked eighty hours a week at the hospital. This meant our socialising was limited to attending the parties she was invited to.

And that is how I found myself, having just turned 26, attending a pyjama party at one of Ginny’s friend’s houses.

I pushed open the door to the house, which had been left ajar, already exhausted after a fifteen-hour shift. I didn’t want to come, but Ginny was insistent that I at least show my face. We were both single, and while I didn’t mind this, she was desperate to do something about it and was adamant I played wing-woman.

Unfortunately, it seemed I had the wrong idea of what was acceptable pyjama party wear. The house was full of scantily clad partygoers. Women dressed in tiny shorts and crop tops drank beer with men in just their boxers. Occasionally, one of them would have a robe on, but it was flung open, and everything was on display.

I quickly located Ginny, who was upside down and drinking beer from a funnel. I waited patiently for her to finish. She immediately cast her eyes up and down my body.

“I said pyjamas, Hermione, not long-johns!” She smiled and hugged me anyway. Ginny liked to tease, but I think that was symptomatic of her having so many brothers. She was never mean about it.

“Oh, I didn’t have long back at the flat, so I grabbed the first thing I could put my hands on.” I helped myself to a plastic cup filled with some sort of liquor and knocked it back. I rarely drank, but I felt one drink would help me loosen up. I was a light-weight, so I knew I needed to be careful.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m sure nobody will notice you’re dressed like you should be at the frontier.” She was lying; I could see the sly smiles of the other girls as they walked past me. Their lack of clothing unnerved me; I’d never seen so much flesh on display, even at the beach. And where the hell were they keeping their wands?! Ginny was still talking, so I tried my best to tune back into her. She laced her fingers through mine. “There’s someone here you need to see!”

I rolled my eyes. She was forever setting me up with wizards I wasn’t interested in. I was no good at relationships and hated commitment and feelings. But I didn’t get time to protest. Ginny was already pulling me through the crowded house. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she could find the person she was looking for, so she climbed onto the nearest table and pulled her wand out of seemingly thin air. She pointed it at her throat and muttered a quick  _ Sonorous _ charm. Only then did I spot the words “whore” emblazoned on the back of her tiny shorts.

Merlin, Ginny.

“Oy, Ron!” She was drunk, and she almost lost her balance, but she finally spotted who she was looking for after all of the crowd turned towards her briefly. She pointed across the room and waved energetically. I followed her eye line and couldn’t help but feel a flutter of excitement as I spotted her brother, who I hadn’t seen since that magical night ten years ago.

He was wearing boxer shorts, trainers, and a zip-up hoodie, unzipped and showing off his toned stomach. In one hand was a plastic cup, but an oversized novelty foam finger covered the other.

As a teenager, Ron had always looked as if he’d been stretched out too much. But over the last few years, he’d bulked out. I think Ginny had mentioned he was working in the Auror department. He wasn’t overly muscly, but his training programme made him look like he actually belonged to his body now. He still had the same messy red hair, and his face was still full of freckles, but they were now accompanied by the start of a red beard spattering across his jaw. The look really suited him.

He wove his way through the crowd, led by the ridiculous foam finger. He got to me, tapping me on the head gently with the pointer.

“Do I know you?”

“Hi, Ron Weasley!” I smiled. It was nice to have a familiar face amongst all the strangers. Immediately, I was transported back to that night at camp, and I couldn’t stop the laugh escaping my lips. “I’m Hermione Granger; you tried to finger me at Hogwarts Summer Camp!”

“No way? Wow! What are you doing here? Don’t you live in France or something?”

He stepped away from me and gave me this ridiculous wonky grin that reached all the way to his eyes. 

“No, I live back in the UK now. I’m surprised Ginny didn’t tell you, considering we live together!”

“Ginny tells me nothing!” The smirk on his face gave away his lie, and I could tell he had just forgotten about me. That’s okay, though; I’m pretty forgettable.

“Well, it’s nice to see you again.” I turned as if to leave, hoping that Ginny would want to explore the house a little further, but she was dancing on the table with someone I didn’t know, but if the sticker emblazoned on his bare chest was true, he was called Dave.

“Go, Ginny! She better hope Harry doesn’t see her. That guy has had a crush on her since he was fifteen!” Ron slung an arm around my shoulder as if we’d been best friends forever. “That looks like fun, though. Do you want to dance?”

“Oh, I haven’t had enough to drink for that, sorry, Ron!” I remembered how awkwardly we’d danced together at the party at Camp Hogwarts. “Anyway, surely you prefer to finger a girl first?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

He burst out laughing, clutching his sides as if they were going to split. “Oh, Hermione, I forgot how much I liked you!”

“I’m sure that’s just the beer talking,” I replied dryly.

“No, I like you. You tell things how it is. I could do with more friends like you. We should swap numbers. You know, just in case I need a joke or need bringing back down to earth. We could owl, but I don’t think it would have the same effect as hearing your scathing tone.”

I studied him closely. He had righted himself again, and that ridiculous lopsided grin was still on his face, but he looked friendly enough. I was pretty sure we’d never talk again, that we’d only see each other in fleeting moments like this, but still, it would be nice to have someone else I could call a friend in the world. I said a silent thanks to Alphonso Rainer, the brilliant magician who finally worked out how to eliminate magical interference on muggle electronic devices.

“Sure thing, pass me your phone…” I held my hand out for it. He fumbled in his hoodie pockets before finally thrusting it at me and I typed my number in, saving it under my name before passing it back.

“I will ring you now, and then you’ll have my number too!” He pressed a button, and my phone was soon ringing. “You can save it under sexy!”

I smirked as I typed in his name then showed it to him. The grin on his face fell.

“Soon, Hermione, you’ll only refer to me as sexy!” He ruffled my hair, which I absolutely hated, but before I could retaliate, he was already working his way back through the party.


End file.
